


would it be enough if i could never give you peace?

by amessofgaywords



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F, anniversary but make it haunted!, but there's a nice bath so she gets over it, dani does a surprise for her wife which initially makes her wife a little scared, occupied by cheeky plant sapphics and power walking au pairs at the moment, please watch the haunting of bly manor on netflix, welcome to the deep recesses of my heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords
Summary: Dani raises one hand out of the bathwater in a small wave. “It’s six years since we left today.”or jamie panics, then doesn't, and dani feels happy for a little while. not exactly a fix-it, but close.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 22
Kudos: 193





	would it be enough if i could never give you peace?

**Author's Note:**

> psa: spoilers for the haunting of bly manor.
> 
> hello, good afternoon, i love these two a lot. i may or may not have wept about this show for twenty minutes after finishing, and then i may or may not have written this immediately afterwards. it started as catharsis, it turned out a little bit sad, but hey. what else do you expect from me at this point?
> 
> title from peace by taylor swift.

There’s a light on in the bathroom, so Jamie thinks the worst.

In a way, she sort of has to. Years and years and she’s become somewhat of Dani’s damage control. Not in the way she ever thought she might be to another person, but it’s a role she doesn’t mind filling all that much. Not for Dani, never for Dani.

The light in the bathroom is dim; Jamie knows from years of experience with this shite apartment it’s the flickery one over the tub. That makes her think the worst too.

It flickers twice in the time it takes to walk down the hallway, once then, twice, like a steady sign. When Jamie gets to the closed door, she hears deep breathing. Not ragged breathing, not _no_ breathing, at least, deep breathing. She doesn’t realize that she’s curled up her fist, pressed her thumb into the metal-lined crevice between her ring finger and her palm, until her nail breaks the skin. Once it was reassuring. Lately it’s become a desperate prayer.

Should she knock? It feels absolutely ridiculous to knock and Jamie’s pretty fearless about most things so she opens the door straight away. She doesn’t know what she expects to see, but it isn’t at all what she _does_ see.

What she sees is Dani in the tub. She’s covered in soapy bubbles – the whole room smells like lavender. There’s rose petals (they’re not Jamie’s roses, thank Christ, she loves Dani but she’d fucking end her if she cut those without asking first). The light over the tub is on, and it’s low and flickery, but so are the candles Dani’s placed on the sides of the bath, on the counter, on the toilet, even. She smiles that Dani smile.

“It’s, uh – oh, hi.” Dani raises one hand out of the bathwater in a small wave. “It’s six years since we left today.”

Jamie raises her chin imperceptibly and leans a hip against the counter. “Six years, huh?”

Dani nods eagerly. To Jamie, she’s always had this look. This look of a kid, almost, a wee kid who is just waiting for someone grown-up to tell them they’ve done good, they’ve got worth. Funny, since Dani’s always the one reassuring everyone else of that worth. It’s like all the good, she absorbs it and throws it back, like moonlight off petals, like sunlight off lakes. Jesus, forget the lakes. Focus on the woman.

Jamie cocks her head to the side. She’ll be a cheeky bastard for show, it can’t hurt. “Wow. Six years since we left the Peterborough airport for New York, right?”

“You silly, stupid- Six years since we left Bly!” Dani reaches out a soapy, wet hand, and grabs at Jamie. She trips on the rug and falls forward, catching herself on the tub’s edge. She knocks a bar of soap into the water, and they both laugh while Dani presses her nose up and into Jamie’s. She kisses her, solid, real, not lost like she’s been lately. The water doesn’t feel like _foreboding_ water, and Jamie’s aware that sounds crazy, but she’s seen things crazier than the woman she loves waiting for her in a nice-smelling bath.

“Right, right, Bly. I’d almost forgotten, you know.”

“Wish I could.” Dani’s face gets pensive, tight, and Jamie’s tempted to slap herself. Look what you did, you munter, she’s upset now.

“Hey.” Jamie grabs Dani’s face. It takes a second, but as their eyes lock, Dani’s posture relaxes. She reaches up and cups her hand, soaking Jamie’s sleeve and her fingers. She locks them together; it’s her left hand after all. “Hey,” she coaxes, and Dani’s breathing slows. “You can’t see her, right?” Dani nods. Jamie focuses on her eyes. The blue one most of all, the one that’s _Dani’s_ , the one that she sees love in every day of her life. “Good. Good. Then she’s not here. And it’s just you, and me, and the bath, okay? What you can’t see isn’t here and it’s not going to hurt you, right? You made sure of that, love.”

Dani gasps. “But I. But I feel her, Jamie, I do, sometimes, even when I can’t-”

“Shush.” Jamie grips her face tighter, tries to pour everything into her to save her life. She holds as tight as she can, like she alone will stop Dani from drowning. Who knows, at this point. They’re doing something no one’s ever done before, as much she knows, and every morning when she wakes up and Dani’s still there she both expects it and thanks every damned god she knows it’s not over yet. That love of hers, she’s stubborn. It’s the American in her, Jamie used to joke. She thinks now it’s just her. 

Dani quiets. Her eyes well and then cool. Jamie swipes the tears from her cheeks and Dani chuckles wetly. “Well, here we go. I wanted-” she hiccups. “I wanted to give you this great surprise and all and now I’m crying and you’re all wet.”

“I can be much wetter if you want me to be,” Jamie smirks. Dani rolls her eyes, scoffs – really, she should be used to the corny jokes by now. It’s not like Dani can do much better. But she stands up, lip trapped between her teeth, and shucks off her jacket, her flannel, her dungarees, her shirt- Jesus. She wears so many layers.

She leaves the clothes on the rug and steps in between Dani’s legs, settling into her. They’re the same height, but Jamie is absolutely the little spoon, a job she’s not exactly ashamed of. She relaxes. The water’s been kept warm. Dani laces the fingers of their left hands together, noses at her neck.

“Six years.” Jamie sighs, staring up at the paneling of the bathroom ceiling. Dani nods and hums against her. “Feels like shorter, longer, I dunno.”

“Feels like longer, I think.” Dani scrunches up her nose. “It’s the nineties now.”

“True. I live in the States.”

“We got a cat.”

“Cat died, too,” Jamie points out, craning her neck around. Dani nods solemnly.

“Hmm. She did. So did Horace.”

“Poor old Horace.” Horace was the pothos ivy plant they had in their living room for the longest time. He lived four years before croaking. He was the only one they named and the one they mourn the most. Maybe more than the cat, if Jamie’s being honest. They should have gotten a dog but they both agreed they didn’t want to walk it.

In silence, they soak. Dani runs her fingers up and down Jamie’s arms, like she can’t believe she’s still here. Like she can’t believe this is her life still. Jamie feels that too, but for different reasons.

“Oo-kay, I’m pruning,” Dani says after what must be a little less than an hour but feels more like a lifetime. The water around them’s gone cold and still. Jamie was almost asleep. She sits forward a little so Dani can get out behind her, and she watches her towel off. Dani’s less than graceful. She loves her anyway.

“How was your afternoon?” Dani slips into a pair of shorts and one of Jamie’s flannels and starts combing out her hair. Jamie just watches her. A noncommittal hum is the only answer she gives. Dani yanks at a tangle, and Jamie cocks her head, absorbing the scrunch of her nose and the grit of her teeth and the tensed muscles of her arms and the _here_ of her. Tangle defeated, Dani turns back and smiles awkwardly. “What?”

“Six years,” Jamie says again. “You know six years ago, I was living above a pub. I didn’t love anyone enough but my plants. I thought loving wasn’t something that belonged to me. Because people…”

“Are work and effort.” Dani rolls her eyes, laughing a little. Her eyes crinkle in the corners. It hits Jamie, suddenly, that they’re all the way to thirty now. Thirty and still _them_. That’s worth the effort, it is.

“People are work and effort, I’ll have you know.” Jamie stands and lets the water run off her body, accepts the towel Dani hands her. She steps out of the tub and squeezes out her hair, frizzy from the humidity in the bathroom. “Not you, though. Never you. You’ve been effortless since I met you.”

“You didn’t even try,” Dani scoffs, picking at the casing on the countertop with a fingernail. “Remember the day we met? You didn’t even introduce yourself.”

Jamie raises a shoulder. “Didn’t have to. You did all the introducing for me.” With a few steps, she’s at Dani’s chest. She traces a fingertip along Dani’s collar and feels her shiver, and instead of making her hot it makes her warm. She slides an arm around her waist and grins, pressing their noses together. “You found me in the greenhouse at six in the morning with bloody _awful_ coffee and asked me out. For proper boring drinks. You were stubborn enough that I figured you must be worth the effort, and Lord, was I right.”

“It’s not like I’m some super willpower person or something,” Dani laughs through a suspicious smile. “I liked you. And you made me feel like I could do it, you know, without feeling bad. So I did it.”

“More than I would’ve done.” Jamie pecks her cheek. “More than I have done, really.” She wraps her arms around Dani, turns them so they’re facing the mirror. She sees Dani’s face, pretty and soft and totally hers forever, pretty nice. She sees them and their hands, clutched tight in each other. She has no intention of letting go of _this_ quite yet.

“Point of curiosity, Poppins.” Dani hasn’t nannied kids in ages but the nickname will always stick. Her face perks up. “Why does this one matter to you? And not, you know, the day we kissed or something?”

Dani spins around, and instinctively Jamie’s hands slide to her neck. Dani’s matter-of-fact when she says “I like to think of this as the anniversary.”

“We got married,” air quotes around the married, annoyingly, “in October.”

“Yeah, but you convinced me it was worth it today. Six years ago, I mean.” Dani shrugs. “In the bedroom at Bly, and then in the car, and then at the airport, and every day since then.” Dani shudders with a breath, and for a moment, Jamie goes back to crisis mode. But her heartbeat stays even and her breathing slows. Her eyes, wide, open, loving, settle into Jamie’s every crack and crevice. “Six years ago, today, I made a choice. To love you until… until whatever the end is. That’s what happened, I mean, I said that I wanted to love you and I did. I still do. I guess that’s a day worth remembering, when I said you were worth it.” 

She knows exactly what Dani means. It’s a lot of things. They’re worth it. However many days are worth it. The shop is worth it, Dani’s job is worth it, the bloody Vermont weather is worth it. Dani at night hugging Jamie close to her chest feeling not like two bodies, not half a body, but one, feeling like living, is worth it. It’s the stubborn American in her girl. And it's also, a little bit, Jamie.

“I’m worth it?” Jamie asks with a quirk of her lips. She expects Dani to make a face, but her eyes are earnest.

“Of course you are.”

Jamie’s definitely gonna cry, so she kisses Dani before she can. Not that she minds Dani seeing her cry. Lord knows it’s happened enough. She’s just crying about another, different thing, that’s all.

“I’m tucked away,” Jamie sighs against her lips, and Dani’s arms squeeze her harder.

“Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

“Bloody hell, fucking-” The lights in the bathroom flicker. Dani’s skin, warm and a little slippery still through the flannel, starts to cool. Whatever this is, it’s fading. “No chance, I suppose, I could get this to last longer.”

“No.” When Jamie looks at Dani’s eyes, she sees tears there too.

“I loved every moment with you. I loved this one, but every moment is worth getting tucked away in. You know that, love.” Once she realizes, it’s only a matter of time. Jamie fights. She holds on. But it wasn’t enough to hold her once and it isn’t now, and, of course, it’s never going to be again.

“I did,” Dani whispers. “I still do.”

Jamie wakes up in her hotel room, curled in a bloody uncomfortable chair. She swears she feels the touch of Dani’s hand on her shoulder as the door to room clicks carefully shut.

**Author's Note:**

> there's a quote by myriam gurba that i think really defines this whole thing: "she enjoys music through me. she enjoys food through me. she enjoys sunsets through me. she enjoys the smell of certain flowers through me. it's ok for ghosts to exist through me. it has to be." amazing quote for a lot of reasons, but it seemed especially fitting for these two tragic lovelies.
> 
> come yell at me @amessofgaywords on twitter.


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